Share

'Thinking ahead' involves Godly imagination. It is a vital part of preparing for a fresh expression, but is easily missed out.

In How do fresh expressions develop?, we suggest that many ventures are likely to develop as follows:

The fresh expressions journey

This diagram is described more fully in The fresh expressions journey - a fuller version.

'Thinking ahead' is about imagining this journey and identifying values that would give permission for your venture to travel from one stage to the next.

In 'Exploring the possibilities' you listened to the people you are called to serve. 'Thinking ahead' involves imagining the fresh expressions journey in the context of these people's values and lifestyle.

It is not about writing a rigid plan. Of course you do have to plan - you can't fly blind. But many fresh expressions do not develop as expected. They respond to changing circumstances and are more ad hoc. So combining forethought with flexibility is key.

'Thinking ahead' is more of a creative than a predictive process. It follows a kingdom pattern of thought (see What are values?). Just as hopes for God's future inspire values that guide action today, so 'thinking ahead'  involves:

• expressing your hopes for the venture;

• turning these hopes into values that will guide your activities;

• exploring ways to turn these values into practical action.

Doing this should open the door to your hopes being realised - the venture will be more likely to grow into church. That is one reason why 'thinking ahead' is so important. (The value of 'thinking ahead' is discussed further in Why thinking ahead matters.)

'Thinking ahead' involves identifying your hopes for the venture. Perhaps you have nearly finished the exploring phase. A vision for your fresh expression has emerged. You may be tempted to rush ahead and get started.

Why not pause and ask yourselves, 'What do we hope this venture will look like in six months, a year, two years or five years' time, or perhaps longer?' 'What are our hopes and dreams for this vision as it unfolds?' Dreaming dreams for your vision could be one of the most exciting parts of preparing for a fresh expression.

To help you identify your hopes, you might ask questions such as these:

• What might community look like as the venture develops? Your answers might include, 'We'll do lots of eating together', 'We'll be a safe place for people to share their hurts and joys' and 'People are constantly on the move, so being community online will be just as important as our physical gatherings'.
• How might people travel from community to discipleship? (You might want to read Moving from community to discipleship.) After some discussion, you might agree that you will build a spiritual element into the venture from an early stage, but the spiritual dimension won't be too explicitly Christian to start with.
• What might discipleship entail? Comments might include, 'It will depend on the people involved', 'We'll need to go at their pace', 'Discipleship will be more than a course', 'We can all learn together', 'We'd need to look at what resources are available', 'Alpha could be useful later on' and 'Might we go on a weekend retreat?'
• What might church look like in this context? (You might want to read A different approach to church.) Again this may be difficult to imagine, but comments might include, 'We'll need to be flexible', 'We'll need to ask them what works', 'Let's keep it simple' and 'We must keep faithful to Scripture'.
• How will the venture be sustained? (You might want to read Sustaining a fresh expression.) You might agree that keeping things as simple as possible and sharing the leadership with those whom you're called to serve should be two priorities.

Turning hopes into values is the next step, and requires you to be clear about what you mean by values. We would define values as 'hopes that really matter to you'. This definition is discussed further in What are values?

So having brainstormed your hopes, you might discuss, 'If we could achieve only four of our hopes, which four would make the biggest difference?' These hopes might then become the basis of the venture's values.

The biggest difference to what? You might answer that question in relation to the fresh expressions journey. Your values might be those hopes that you think will make the greatest difference to completing the journey to church.

One approach might be to list all the hopes on a flip chart, and ask each person to score them 1 to 5 for their contribution to making the journey toward church. The scores would be added together, and you would select the hopes with the highest ratings.

For instance, you might select the following hopes (given only as examples):

• 'We'll be a community in which people can share their hurts and joys.'
• 'We'll seek to create an openness to God each time we meet.'
• 'We'll share leadership as broadly as possible.'
• 'We'll keep things as simple as we can.'

You might acknowledge the gaps - there is little here on discipleship and the nature of church. But you might feel that the values you have identified will be especially important for the early stages of the venture. Values governing discipleship and the nature of church could be added later.

It is advisable to have a short list rather than a long one. Much better to have a few key values that you remember than a comprehensive list that everyone forgets.

A chief executive of a large company was boasting to a colleague, 'We're a values-driven company.' 'What are your values?' the colleague asked. 'Hang on, let me see if I can find the list,' came the reply. Values should be in your heart, not your pocket.

It will also be important to avoid mother-and-apply-pie values that are too vague to be helpful. 'We'll be a loving community' is probably too woolly to point to specific actions. You need values that will be a guide to what you actually do. That is why the next stage of 'thinking ahead' is important.

Exploring how to turn your values into practical action will be a good test of whether your values are of any use. Good values change things. Thinking how your values might affect your practice will reveal the worth of your values.

You may want to imagine some possible actions or activities that will flow from your values. What sort of things might you do to give a concrete shape to each value?

For instance, discussing how to make a reality of the first value - 'We'll be a community in which people can share their hurts and joys' - might encourage you to list these possibilities (again, only given as examples):

• eating regularly together;
• gently encouraging the core Christians to share appropriately what is going on in their lives, so that an atmosphere of relaxed openness ripples out to the wider group;
• providing an opportunity for individuals to pass on prayer requests to the core Christians, when the latter meet to pray.

At this stage you may not be sure what will work best, but at least you will have some ideas to chew over. As the venture gets underway, you can revisit your discussion and see which of the ideas are still relevant.

One possibility might be to write on a flip chart your values and some of the ways of giving these values practical bite. Might you review the list each time you pray together?

In short, 'Thinking ahead' involves three steps, based on asking three questions:

• What are our hopes for this fresh expression?
• Which of these hopes are most important (values)?
• What sort of things would we have to do to put these values into practice?

'Thinking ahead' could lead to one of the following outcomes:

• Hopefully, it will help the venture grow into church. You will be able to build into your vision some concrete values that will aid the journey from loving service to church.

  Instead of saying, for example, 'Our vision is to provide training among disaffected young people, and we pray that an expression of church will come out of this', you might offer a more precise vision:

  'We intend to provide training among disaffected young people, build community in these sorts of ways, transition to evangelism and discipleship using this broad approach, and sow the seeds of a fuller expression of church possibly like this...'

• You may end up saying, 'We can't see too far ahead. We can imagine how the venture will take a few steps on the fresh expressions journey and develop some of the marks of church. We'll trust God to show us later how the full expression may come about.'

• You may conclude that your project is not about fresh expressions of church. You can't imagine how the venture will become church, but you think it is worth doing anyway.

  There would be nothing wrong with that. You would still be advancing the kingdom. But you might want to be explicit about what you are doing. 'We're involved with Christian mission, not necessarily a fresh expression of church.'

• You may decide that you are going up a blind alley – that the vision you thought you were given will not be sustainable or does not have the potential to mature into church. This conclusion would be disappointing, but better perhaps to reach it now than in a couple of years' time.

  You may take a deep breath, review all you have learnt so far and ask God to give you a new vision.

The amount of time you spend on 'thinking ahead' will depend on your circumstances. For instance, if a couple of you are considering a fresh expression among your friends, you may want to work through the three steps suggested here - identify hopes, turn hopes into values, turn values into practical action - without becoming over-complicated.

If you are a planning group examining the possibility of your local churches appointing a paid pioneer, you may not want to get stuck in too much detail. You will want to leave room for the pioneer to stamp their own mark.

It may be enough to raise some of the issues and suggest some values for illustrative purposes. Including these issues and values in a 'brief' for the pioneer would help the person appointed to draw on your wisdom, without feeling that their hands have been too tied.

A paid pioneer or a church planting team, on the other hand, may want to think ahead in considerable detail. A lot of thought may have gone into the venture so far. Significant sums of money may have been committed. You owe it to those supporting you to plan your venture carefully.

Whatever your circumstances, however, it is worth heeding the warning of some fresh expression pioneers: they wish they had thought through in more detail what they intended to do. You would be wise to strike a healthy balance between systematically thinking ahead and being open to surprises.

Thinking ahead → shared values

The next two pages, Organising support and Nurturing the team, may help you to plan some of the practical steps that could help your fresh expression to fly.

Back to top